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"kaleidoscope thinking," a mental process of shaking up the pieces and reassembling them to form a new pattern, the way a kaleidoscope creates endless patterns. This metaphor suggests that reality is not necessarily fixed. The stories we tell ourselves — our cultural assumptions — are the limiting factor.

Narratives should be rewritten when they inhibit rather than inspire. Individuals and institutions can get bogged down by narratives that suggest inevitability — "it has always been this way, it was meant to be this way, and it couldn't possibly change."

Even in companies doing well, narratives prevent change if the stories are ones of destiny, and eventually entitlement

when a user comes across your Twitter handle or Facebook feed, she doesn't suddenly transform into a "professional-only" mode that consumes, filters and reacts to content based 100% on her company and career. No, her professional persona may take center stage, but her entire thought process is also influenced by the less apparent parts of her personality: the fact that she's a parent, enjoys rock climbing, is coming off a rough week or lives in a city. As marketers, we need to embrace this fundamental nature of user behavior; namely, that people act, engage, and respond not solely as professionals, but as nuanced human beings.

If connection needs to take place at a human level, then our brands must also become human

Being a humanized brand means learning the art of authenticity. It means being genuine, being passionate about whatever it is your brand is and does. Just like in everyday life, people respond most to others who are perceptibly and consistently real. And that's why it's an art, not a formula. Authenticity, in the long run, can't be manufactured or faked.

According to a massive body of psychological research, a powerful phenomenon called the "mere exposure effect" compels people to develop a preference for specific content simply because they are familiar with it. In social psychology, it’s called the "familiarity principle." We are all drawn innately toward that which we recognize. It makes sense that we would prefer stories that are architecturally similar to other stories we’ve heard in the past.

An intrinsically human narrative, the Slaying the Dragon strategy is the platform for many of humankind’s most celebrated stories. From Beowulf to Jaws, the American Revolution to the Arab Spring, this is the story of the hero (for most marketing content, this is the product or brand) who ventures bravely forth to selflessly slay the dragon in order to protect those the hero loves (for marketing, the consumer).

Why "two-way conversation"? This buzzword-y phrase is a way to distinguish the strategy from the equally buzzword-y phrase "one-way conversation" (sometimes referred to as one-way manipulation), in which a brand dominates the conversation or outputs information without really engaging. Two-way conversation, then, is a strategy that a brand uses to exude a human quality, showing (or pretending to show) that they care about what you have to say. Instead of broadcasting, they're engaging.

If you're speaking with a friend who has nothing valuable to contribute to the conversation, it's not really a successful conversation, is it? The same goes for brands.

"There’s you, the person, and you have your full identity in yourself," he says. "But you know contextually when to wear certain things. You might wear one thing to a funeral, you might wear one thing for a Saturday night. You understand those contexts. And those never change your identity, so to speak, but they do start to communicate some kind of intent. And that’s what we’re trying to figure out right now. How do you create some kind of contextual mirror to create intent."

"Monolithic solutions are a necessity of yesterday, because of the permanence and cost of communication," Hendrix wrote in his opening remarks for the project. "Now we’re in an ephemeral and affordable age, and mass distribution at low cost is possible thanks to the digital revolution."

"The digital revolution let us make more complex identity systems, but what’s the point?," he says. "At some point, you start asking, 'why do I need 10,000 configurations of a mark? What’s it really saying to me?"

A great man is one sentence. ~ Clare Boothe Luce

To make the soup more flavorful, you don’t add more spices to it. Instead, you boil the excess water. That’s what you have to do. Not add new elements, simply subtract boring ones.

People will only remember you for one thing. If you try to force them to remember multiple facets, you’ll never make room for yourself in their brain (or heart). But what if you have more than one thing to talk about? What if you solve more than one problem? If you solve more than one problem, you’ve got to do what Apple does. Apple sells more than 30 products in varying product categories. Macbooks and iPods and iPhones and iPads. But they unify all their products under one element: the undeniable user interface. Apple does not sell computers and mp3 players and phones and tablets. They sell gadgets with an undeniable user interface.